Conches

My Family Owned Slaves

My family owned slaves.

Clearly there are many Americans for whom this is a reality.  What I know is that, in his will, Thomas Gillespie

   BORN:  ca. 1719
   MARR:  ca. 1745               Augusta Co Virginia
   DIED:  15 Dec 1796            Rowan Co North Carolina

owned and bequeathed five slaves to his children.  To his wife, he gave the women, Liza and Fan.  To his son, Alexander Gillespie, he gave a boy, Peter and a woman, Violet.  To his son, Robert Gillespie, he gave the man, Dick and the woman, Phoebe.

You can see the will here:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dmorgan/thomasg.txt

My father's mother's mother was Lula Gillespie (1883-1969) and the lines goes:
Lula -> Francis Marion Gillespie (1843-1900) -> John Morgan Gillespie (1811-1881) -> George Gillespie (1811-1881)->George Gillespie (1751-1818)->Thomas Gillespie (1719-1797).

I just found this document on the web today.

The Gillespie family can also claim the Gillespie Rifle which was said to be the rifle that "won the west" which may be accurately  translated as the rifle that committed genocide of native Americans.  Additionally, a more distant relative, Major Archibald H. Gillespie, was an officer in the Mexican American war sent by President Polk, also a relative (twice removed), to California in 1845 to explore the potential of annexing California.

So, all of this is me...

I'm not sure how to deal with it...

The perfect Network Neutrality Foil

In a recent Forbes commentary I found a wonderful opportunity to show why network neutrality is important by contrasting individual rights with corporate profit motive. 

Phil Kerpen's comments are the perfect foil for anyone interested in democracy and a free and open society. His silly, Rovean playground insults leveled at "network neutrality Cassandras" and "the angry left" serve only to remove Mr. Kerpen from list of serious thinkers.

As for the details of his commentary...

He states:

"What is network neutrality? In its strictest form, it means a government mandate that Internet service providers have to treat all of the bits of data traveling on their network the same way. "

I am in complete agreement with this statement. It is a rare occurance when the two sides of a debate can actually agree on the basic issue without a lot of rhetorical noise. I support the "government mandate" because network neutrality is best understood as a critical component of civil rights with implications for free speech as well as the right of assembly and association. The primary difference between my position and Mr. Kerpen's is that he believes, above all else, in the right to make money regaurdless of how corporate interests may intersect with the interests of individuals.